From Under the Shadow
by Vilinye
Summary: He thought he could let her go. But on that last night at Darillium, she tells him something that changes everything. Maybe he can't escape fate, but he can give it a good run.


_When we're holding on to something precious, we run. We run and run fast as we can. And we don't stop running until we are out from under the shadow._

—Rings of Akhaten

* * *

He must have heard wrong—the Towers' song has befuddled his brain. "What did you say?" He turns his gaze from the gleaming stars and indigo sky to her gleaming face. The night air dribbles on his skin, leaving sweat and goose bumps.

River's face, brushed by the twin moonlight, threatens to burst with joy. "We're going to have a baby. I'm not sure when—how long _are_Time Lord pregnancies?—and tonight, finally here—-"

He recoils, staggering to his feet. He can feel the planet spinning beneath him, thousands of kilometers per hour on its axis and millions in its orbit. Gravity has snapped, hurling him into space. His mouth tastes like rotten apples and he doesn't even fight the urge to vomit. There's no trees to hide behind—he just stands there, dry heaving, till his throat is lined with sandpaper.

"I always thought nausea was the woman's response to pregnancy—or is it different with Time Lords? I mean, I've been fine so far." She adjusts the white robe over her dress. "I know you're not very observant, but I thought you might notice."

"You can't go to the Library."

"What? Of course I can. I'm not going to sit back and sip tea until Junior decides to join us. We have a good team and the security's finally unlocked. A hundred year-old mystery to solve."

_Miss Evanglista, stripped to a skeleton. The two Daves, swarms in suits._

"You can't."

"Since when have you told me what to do?" River laughs. "Anything you suggest was my idea first. Always."

He drops to one knee, pressing one hand against her cheek, the other to her womb. "You can't—River, please." It's the same tone—high, pleading—as Manhattan. "Somewhere else, then. Anywhere else. But not the Library, promise me. Promise me."

"Is it really so dangerous?"

He looks at her, through her, a walking ghost.

"Cause I'm telling you, never could resist a warning. I'll send you a message if you insist, but really…"

He pulls away, digging through his suit coat until he finds the physic paper. _ The Library. Come as soon as you can. X. _"Old news, River. Hundreds of years old. All this time I've known—I thought I could do it, I thought I could say goodbye." He throws it to the ground. "But I can't have it—I won't send you to your death. **Time can be rewritten."**

"Calm down!"

"You die there! Burn out your brain saving 4022 people from the data core. And I'll be there, handcuffed, watching with no idea that I'm watching my wife save my life again. Not even the smallest memories—just another stranger." He presses his face against her shoulder, hands tracing the neural relay on her head. "I never wanted this. I've been putting it off for centuries. But for our child—you can't go. Not now. Not ever."

"That's where I met you, though; the Library?"

"Spoilers," he pleads, but she interprets correctly: _yes_.

"A fixed point, then."

"Time can be rewritten."

The essence of the argument in eight words. It's followed by shouting, weeping, storming off and hurt looks.

We don't have to decide now.

They're never sure afterwards who says it, but the suggestion wraps them like a blanket. His hand slips back onto her belly; she covers them with her own.

* * *

The next morning, he takes her to the medbay for an ultrasound. Four weeks along, the scan confirms, with roughly thirteen months to go. River rolls her eyes and mutters about the unfairness of it all. Seriously, she'd have thought a race as advanced as the Time Lords would have found a way to make the whole process less uncomfortable.

Well, there were the Looms, he comments, barely able to keep a straight face. No, seriously, he insists, that's how all Time Lords were made for thousands and thousands of years. They came out as fully-grown adults, a bit clumsy perhaps, and sent to live in one of the great Houses when all the furniture was made too big so you'd feel properly small.

Rule 27: Never knowingly be serious.

That sounds even worse—she's sure there's some school of psychology or philosophy that could trace all his quirks, throughout every regeneration, to such a peculiar upbringing. If that's the only other option, she'll settle for the old-fashioned route, but she's not claiming responsibility for any mood swings or cravings, got that?

The Doctor rubs her back, murmuring encouragement to disguise his own relief. He has over a year to concoct a better plan; he won't send her to the Library pregnant, fixed points be dammed! Later that night, he steals her Vortex Manipulator and spends an hour thoroughly and methodically breaking it beyond repair.

When River throws up; he insists on picking it up, moping the floor, stripping the bed , throwing the sheets in the wash, remaking the bed with the softest blankets, sanitizing every surface within reach, and spraying the room with air freshener.

When the scent nearly makes her throw up again, he turns the fans on so high the pillows swirl like autumn leaves. She calls him overprotective, mollycoddling, chauvinist, and he pretends to be offended. None of her names could be worse than the truth, the gut-deep dread from defying a fixed point for his wife and child. He remembers two Amys, one young, one old, triggering a paradox in response to three words: what about Rory? The breaking point replays in his mind; River pulling away from him at area 52, unwilling to kill him.

Ponds must be a bad influence on him.

* * *

Five months pregnant. Seven and a half. Ten. He accidentally compares River to an elephant—a small one, a baby, like you see at circuses with balloons and candy floss, or maybe Babar, he's always liked Babar—and is told to go build a cabinet. After falling into the pool on his way to the console room three times, he realizes the TARDIS has taken River's side. "Fine then. Fine. Just remember, I saved her life."

Water sloshes against the patio.

"I know," he whispers. "I'm scared too."

* * *

Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Of course I do, I'm a doctor," he huffs, glancing at the monitors.

"Have you ever done this before?" Her words end in a howl.

"Oye, that's rude! TARDIS, remember? Best medical equipment anywhere!" There's nothing else he can do right now, nothing but rub his gloved hands together and wait. Despite his shirtsleeves, trousers, and braces, he feels strangely naked. Part of him wishes he could take her to a hospital, Sisters of the Infinite Schism maybe, the best support possible. But he knows she'd never agree—too many smudged memories of needles and monitors, her own birth from the coffin-chamber of Demon's Run. So he redecorated the medbay, painting the walls TARDIS blue by hand with cartoony images of all his faces.

River screams, pressing her knees against her chest. Her telepathic aura repeats the same message, blurred with pain and speckled with bright lights. He had offered her anesthetics when the contractions started, but her body processes pain meds nearly as fast as hers, and he doesn't dare give her aspirin. "Hang in there, it's going to be fine. I promise, you'll be fine."

And then there's blood, mostly blood but also slime, and he holds out his hands like he's catching a ball but he doesn't drop her—_her, it's a her_—and he places her in River's arms. For the first time in centuries, his hearts are completely full.

River insists on choosing the name. No pretentious titles for her child, she's going to have a name, plain and simple. "Minerva," River murmurs as she rubs lotion into the wrinkled skin. "Goddess of wisdom. And you are not calling her Minnie, understand?"

He nods obediently. His daughter….all tiny and soft and so, so _helpless._ He gently takes her in his arms. "This is the safest place in the universe, okay? Daddy won't let anybody hurt you. Ever!"

* * *

"But River—"

"Shhh, Minerva's napping. You'll wake her—"

"I don't care—how can you even suggest…"

"If I have to…better to do it now, when she won't remember."

"And what am I supposed to do with a three-month-old?"

"My younger self…" she sucks in her breath. "Just another rewrite."

"You can't mean it—River, she's your daughter!"

"And what sort of mum can I be? I haven't exactly had shining examples to follow. All I remember is that goddam suit and them—-them…"

She rarely alludes to anything before Berlin, but he'd seen enough on the computers at Demons' Run to know their plans, maybe even better than she does after those years of memory wipes. Instead, he paces back and forth, giving her time to calm down.

"You'll be fine—you're great with kids, I've seen you. Just let me do what I have to do."

"I can't bear to lose you; either of you" He touched a few buttons on the console, letting one of the roundels dissolve into the image of a small, dark-haired face. "My granddaughter. When I fled, she was the only one left. And I was so foolish—told her to live her own life, locked myself out of it. Never saw her again." He turns the screen off. "And there was another girl—an accident, really: Jenny. She could have been mine, but…one day, that's all she got. Minerva is staying here, with**us.**"

"I'm not a mumsy sort."

"Neither am I."

She laughs, quietly at first, but he joins in, and his childish face makes her laugh even harder.

* * *

"We are going out for more than groceries, aren't we?" Now that River is back in shape and sleeping regularly, she's contracting a bad case of cabin fever.

"Only if you do the environmental checks," he offers.

She takes that as a yes. "So, where are we going?"

He disappears beneath the console, popping back with a leather-bound volume. "Close your eyes and pick a page. Any page."

She flips the book open, running her fingers over the page. "Here!"

"Oooh…oh, that's a good one." She hears him setting the coordinates. "Beautiful! Minerva will love it! No—don't open your eyes. A surprise." She obliges, listening as he pulls levers and adjusts dials. He leaves the brakes on, as always, but the landing is gentler than normal.

His hand slips into hers. "Your planet, Doctor Song." With his other hand, he snaps his fingers to open the doors. "Eyes still closed?"

"Oh, get on with it!"

"Open your eyes." Forested hills stretch into the distance, like lumpy blankets with fleece patches. The nearest one has patches of smooth grass, like velvet, stretching down to a celadon lake. Mist ruffles the horizon. "But that's not all. Today is the Daedalus Festival, and the skies will be full of ultra-light craft, jet-suits, hang-glides, riding kites, human-avian hybrids, and balloons."

Minerva pokes her head into the console room. "Doors? Open?"

"Yes, they open." He rushes her to the ground and begins tickling her. "And you won't believe what's out there."

Minerva nearly gets swept away when her kite rides a thermal, and there's a few aerial collisions, but everyone's wearing parachutes, so no harm done. "Flowers," Minerva points to a group of synchronized skydivers. "Flying flowers."

River rolls over on their picnic blanket, propping herself up on one elbow. "Can't remember the last time I had an adventure that didn't involve running. It's kind of nice."

"If you want—"

"Oh, shut up." River laughed.

* * *

They were having so much fun whizzing about the universe, searching for absolutely daft planets—the Doctor votes for the planet where fruit tastes like jammie dodgers; River laughed herself sick over the wee blue drunkards who believed they'd already reached the afterlife and death was just going back to the normal world; and Minerva had nearly walked off with a swarm of glasswing butterflies from Kellmullins. So perhaps it's not surprising that it takes nearly three months before River thinks to check out her sore muscles in the medbay.

It isn't a strained hamstring from climbing Mt Olympus or overworked triceps from snatching Minerva away from sinkholes. And the slight weight gain isn't from the planet of sweeties.

"A baby? Again?"

"Well, I should think you've have figured out how it happens by now," River grins. "We've managed it once before, though you were astoundingly awkward at the time, bless. Once was more than I expected, but twice,"

As the words sink in, he rushes her, sweeps her off the ground, quickly setting her down when she glares at him. "How soon?"

"Eleventh months."

"Well then…" he adjusts his jacket. "What shall we do in the meantime? There's this beautiful city called Kor with shores made of gemstones…"

This pregnancy goes far more smoothly than their first. The Doctor knows River will be far too busy with Minerva to even consider the Library: no need to isomorphically lock the TARDIS controls this time.

River, on the other hand, approaches pregnancy just like any expedition or adventure: drink plenty of water, eat properly, be ready to run (towards the loo, away from the monsters), tell him indoors that he's being an idiot, shed some blood, and collect the priceless treasure.

* * *

"So, have you chosen a name yet?" River sets her daughter in the blue cot, laughing at the baby's contented coos.

He has, though it took him four months to convince River to let him name her, and another two to discard the idea of naming her after any of his previous companions. With his luck, little Leela or Jo would have been lost in time and picked up by an earlier incarnation. The remaining five months were spent scrolling through name directories: Ildy, Mary, Abhainn…

Minerva runs into the room, skidding to a stop to look into the cot. She fingers the bald head, the wrinkled fingers, the alpaca-wool dress. "You can keep her."

"Minny—er, Minerva," the Doctor corrects himself. "This is your little sister, Charis."

Charis scrunches her eyes shut.

"She doesn't like me."

"Of course she does. She's just sleepy, you know. She's had a very exciting day. Just this morning, she was floating in a dark void, without a single star. But she heard a song, and she's been following that song towards the light for months. But to come to us, she had to enter a small, dark space that squeezed and pinched and hurt. Now that she's out, she's amazed at all there is, things beyond imagining. The color blue, the taste of fresh milk, the sound of the time rotor and the softness of fleece blankets. And that's just the beginning." he leans over the cradle, rubbing Charis's stomach. "Just wait until you see the Northern Lights shining over the Arctic ice, or the Prismatic Caverns of Strinam. Or take that first step onto an alien planet. The world is full of so many beautiful things—people to meet, worlds to save, and always, always the running."

* * *

On Minerva's seventh birthday, the Doctor wakes up with new memories. He met River at the Library—he retains that much—and a monster that could literally talk your ears off, and maybe it was at Halloween, cause there were skeletons and astronauts and mermaids…

Then he fully wakes up, but the new memory remains, stuck to the old one like jam-smeared pages. Later, after Minerva's unwrapped the contents of half a dozen toy shops on three different planets, when Charis is playing with the wrapping paper and they're frosting the cake—okay, he's eating the frosting nearly as fast as River opens it—he tells her, voice low.

"So." Their life is a tangled scarf, warped by weather and time until all the stitches become one knot. Pull one thread, and everything unravels.

There's another way, there has to be. Maybe the Justice Department has another Tesselecta. An elaborate illusion, projected by the TARDIS. A data ghost on a stable time loop. No, no, impossible. Almost. He loves almost. Maybe it's time. She's had seven good years. No, she doesn't like the idea any more than he does, but—wait, he does have a plan? Yes, a plan, and no, it's not a thing in progress, he's been working on it for centuries. But—that is—well, yes, but he doesn't exactly like it, there's one big problem he hasn't solved yet.

"Just say it!"

"A ganger!" He turns away, blushing redder than his bow tie than his memories of Amy's hair. "But—I know—I understand if you—-that is."

Disposable bodies in St. John's. "You haven't been here for a long, long time." A puddle on the floor of Demon's Run, a puddle that had, briefly, been a Pond.

"I've checked and double-checked—when the Flesh was discovered, when it developed sentience." He's babbling now. "Nerve endings would switch out—you wouldn't feel a thing. I'd be right besides you the whole time…the TARDIS has enough power to broadcast a signal anywhere….River…we could do it."

* * *

The next few days pass in a flurry of plans and arguments. He's fighting to the end, but the memory revision is speeding up. They trade do-you-remembers while rewiring the harness and setting up equipment, like astronauts on Apollo 13 watching the hours left on the life-support equipment.

Charis kept waddling in, generally with one of Minerva presents in hand, saying "This one, dada. This one for me?" followed by Minerva's screams of "She stole my stuff again!" Finally, River makes a few adjustments to the internal configuration, placing a room full of stuffed animals just down the hall. When the Doctor takes a break three hours later, he finds both girls plotting a galactic zoo.

"No, the unicorns should go next to the cheetahs, so they can race. The fuflas like to watch, so they go just down the hill."

Charis hugs a plush golden tamerin to her cheek. "Lion monkeys!"

He smiles and returns to work.

"How are they?"

"Fine," he locks the door. All that's left is creating the ganger and activating it. River's wearing a technician's uniform, standard wear for archaeological missions. "A few minor adjustments, and it should be in perfect working order."

"Tomorrow, maybe?" Regardless of what she was thinking, her voice was teasing as ever.

He begins to stammer more excuses, but halfway through, he realizes he can no longer remember his youngest daughter's name. Charley…Carol…Chalice…Charis. **Charis. **Of course it's Charis, how could he forget after all those hours spent looking through name registries and databases?

"Tomorrow?" River repeats; he nods.

* * *

"Darillium. You have to tell him it was Darillium."

She nods. "Minerva? Charis?"

"Sleeping. They won't even know." The doors are locked and deadlocked; the TARDIS knows there are things her granddaughters must not witness. He helps her into the harness, wires and scanners attached to a padded table. "Be magnificent."

"Aren't I always?" River laughs, but butterflies are dancing in her stomach. It's enough meeting him for the first time, the pressure of making him fall in love with her. (He'll know he loves you, he's told her, speaking of his past self in third person.) But the choice she'll make, has already made, must make—she trusts him, she'll say what must be said, knowing he's listening.

He kisses her again, hands sliding around her face as he secures the final wires. Flesh fingers close around the red-tipped sonic.

Her ganger materializes aboard the vessel hours before they enter planetary orbit. "Cutting it close, are you?" Other Dave teases, and she laughs. He has no idea how close: three-tenths of a nanosecond. That's how much time she'll have once the countdown ends.

* * *

She's getting flashes of the story, déjà vu, moments where she's here in the flesh, where she expects him to recognize her. He's told her parts of it, enough to maintain the timeline, but she didn't expect the emotions too.

"_He looks right through me and it shouldn't kill me, but it does_." River can admit he's not her Doctor, but the truth is worse: he's not her husband. He's not hers, period. As she tells tales of Demon's Run and the Pandorica (broad strokes, not worth a warning), she realizes she'd worried about the wrong part.

It's not the last words killing her, it's all the ones in between. Lovely name. What rules? Who are you to me?

The only water in the forest. The woman who marries you and murders you. The queen who was and will be, Arthur to your England.

* * *

"Lux can manage without me. But you can't!" And it's so _satisfying _to punch that floppy face and watch him sink to the floor. "You really are rubbish in this body, sweetie." River drags him to a corner post, cuffing one wrist to a nearby poll. She'd do both, but, well, he does need to get out, eventually. "Idiot." Her voice cracks. "Really, I mean it this time. I hate you!"

"You don't." The telepathic message rings like a bell. "I'm sorry, River. I'm really, really sorry—I didn't know then!"

"Shut up, I need to finish this before he wakes up. You said I'm just finishing the wiring when you woke up. "

"You'll have time, I promise." He fumbles for words. "I just…I'm here, River. I'm not going to leave."

"You'd better not. " She uses the sonic to detach the input sockets, fashioning them into a rough crown. "What were you thinking, then?"

"Honestly…I thought you were me. Me from the future."

Was my flirting that bad?"

"It was the sonic," he mutters. "Nobody else makes screwdrivers. I have a friend with a lipstick, though."

"Really? Sounds even better than the hallucinogenic."

"I'll take you to meet her, then. It'll be great, should have done it ages ago—"

The prone figure twitched slightly. "Not yet!" River cursed. "I'm not ready."

* * *

"Hush now. Spoilers." Her face—her real face—curls into a smile as her ganger whispers farewell. Memories rush in: her golden hair catching flame, the stench of burning flesh, cold metal biting his wrists.

He rips away the wires, ignoring the frantic beeping and warning lights. He's not keeping her here one more second. Instead, he slips his arms under her—one supporting her neck, the other just below her hips—and carries her to their own room. "You did it," he whispers. He'd met her at the Library, the same maddening woman he's known for centuries. The same _way _he'd met her at first, before "time could be rewritten" was a prophecy and a promise.

After setting her on the bed, he runs a complete scan with the sonic: self-induced coma triggered just as the circuit was completed. He'll just have to wait. He's waited centuries to rewrite the Library, he can wait a few hours.

He hates waiting.

Instead, he presses his forehead against hers, opening the circuits that only Time Lords (and one human, plus) can access. _I'm here. _ Her Doctor, the version she's married and murdered and mothered children on. He receives only a faint twinge in response.

_I know._

* * *

Charis reaches her chubby hands toward him. "Mummy?"

"She's sleeping now. We have to be very, very quiet."

Minerva scrambles on the bed, curling up by River's side. "What happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened?"

She doesn't answer. When she was younger, he thought that meant he'd won the argument. Now he knows she's waiting, ready to shoot down any lie.

"We were having an adventure?" He sighs. They'll have to be told. "I met your mum a long, long time ago."

"I know that."

"But this is a new story." He swoops Charis off the floor, plopping her next to him on the bed. "When I met her, we were being chased by a monster."

"Monswer?"

"It had fiery hair and stone skin, and everywhere it walked was sadness. Its name was Darillium. And it's been chasing us for a long, long time. So today, your mum," he watches River's chest rise and fall for a moment, just to reassure himself. "She fought it. She destroyed it forever."

"Did it hurt her?" Minerva touched River's cheek carefully.

"It…it…" The Doctor tries to lie, tries to keep this no more than another bedtime story, but he can't. "She's your mum. And she'll destroy anything that wants to hurt you. And so will I."

Charis's eyelids have begun to droop. Minerva, curled up like a cat on a cushion, has burrowed under the blankets till only her glossy black hair (from his second regeneration) is visible. He grabs another blanket for Charis, carefully tucking the corners in.

River fidgets, half-rolling over in her sleep, but Minerva squirms aside just in time. "Mummy," she moans. "Don't squish me."

River opens her eyes. "Spoil…spoilers."

"No. You did it, River." He presses his forehead against hers. "The Library is a closed book at last."

"That's a horrid pun."

"What do you mean? It's perfect." He exhales softly. For the first time in seven—no, over eight years—he's not waiting for Reapers or paradoxes. Now he just has to worry about the everyday inconveniences: Minerva's requests for a monkey, the thermocouplings breaking down, the occasional alien invasion. "We won't need the diaries anymore. You and me, side by side." He kissed her forehead. "No more spoilers."


End file.
